Being a teacher is a challenging but rewarding profession, one where often, the instructor learns just as much, perhaps even more than the students themselves. The main miscalculation that many teachers make in the industry is that they teach at their students, instead of with them. What I mean is that the teachers simply try to cram as much material as they possibly can into a lecture, breaking it down into different sub-sections and categories, putting the material on the board and simply telling you to write it down. The problem with this method is that it is not only outdated, but grossly ineffective. It has been shown that the greatest teachers are the ones that interact with their students, ones that keep the material interesting and dynamic every day. A good teacher is energetic and attentive, engaging and perhaps even humorous. Humor is a great tool that is used by many good teachers to insert some levity as well as keep their students focused and refreshed. This isn’t to say that the classroom should be a comedy club, but you should certainly not be shy and be afraid to show your students a bit of your personality. Studies have shown that the more relaxed an environment, the more conducive to learning, which is why techniques like humor go so far in the classroom. Also, the more well-acquainted students are with their instructor, the more willing they are to ask questions about the material, and conversely, the more they care and the more likely they are to pass the class. Betty Waltersdorf is a professional English teacher who utilizes many modern techniques to keep her classroom interesting.

We have all been there before, pulling our hair out because we are having one of those days where things simply are not going our way. Whether it be a pair of forgotten keys, a lost wallet, a delayed train, a traffic jam, life is riddled with these little events that try and test our patience, wearing us so thin that we are on the verge of breaking. Well, what if I told you that this wasn’t the cause of the outside stressors such as traffic jams and screaming children, but came from an internal source. That’s right, it isn’t these events that try our patience, it is the way we handle them. You see, these events are outside of our control most of the time, and though that is the source of a lot of our frustration, it requires a kind of inner discipline and personal philosophy to overcome these feelings of anger or irrational outrage. Patience truly is a virtue, and much like many other virtues, it can only be accomplished with conscious thought and effort. So next time you get caught in a traffic jam, don’t think to yourself how unfortunate you are or blame the situation. Ask yourself firstly how you could have avoided being in this situation. Did you leave for work late? Did you watch the news or study your route to see of any accidents? If you did not do any of these things, then why should you have expected a better outcome? If you were more patient with your routine, you might have been able to avoid these issues all together.Betty Waltersdorf is a professional English teacher who can tell you first hand that patience is the most valuable virtue in the profession.